Research on Imperial Examination Style

Author: Wang Xiaoyang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: The so-called ticket to entry is the literary composition of the imperial examinations. In the Tang Dynasty, poetry and prose were used; in the Song Dynasty, policy discussions were employed. From the Yuan and Ming dynasties onwards, the "eight-legged essay" emerged, imitating the Confucian interpretations of the Song people, speaking on behalf of sages and worthies, with a rigid structure and parallelism, known as the "eight-legged essay." A lifetime's career depends on the three sessions of examinations—how can the success or failure not be of utmost importance? The ancients said: "Literary works are the great undertakings for governing the state and the immortal achievements." Originally, the policy discussions of Chao and Dong, the Confucian interpretations of Jia and Zheng, could be said to be works that moved heaven and earth and made spirits weep. The examination poems of the Three Tang dynasties, such as Yuan and Bai, and Qian Qi; the policy discussions of the Two Song dynasties, such as Ou Yangxiu and Zeng Gong, and the two Su brothers, were all masterpieces of their generation. In the Ming Dynasty, Tang Shun and Gui Youguang; in the Qing Dynasty, Fang Wangxi and Yuan Zicai, were also masters of this art. By the late Qing Dynasty, the practice had become repetitive, with plagiarism and imitation, and no end to it. In the late years of the Qing Dynasty, new learning rose while the imperial examinations were abolished, and they were despised and abandoned. It has been a hundred years since then. During these hundred years, scholars have declined, books have been burned almost completely, and the literary works once learned by children are now unreadable even for the elderly. As a result, the literary style of the imperial examinations has become a blank in research and a wild jungle of academia. Today, when people study the imperial examinations, they only focus on the system and neglect the literary works, dismissing them as outdated and unworthy of attention. Policy discussions, poetry, Confucian interpretations, and the eight-legged essay are the pillars of the imperial examinations—without literary works, there are no imperial examinations. To study the imperial examinations without their literary works is like abandoning the raft and trying to reach the shore—can that be done?